Appreciation for Historic Suffolk

By Claire LedoyenQuailBellMagazine.com

I’ve lived in Suffolk, Virginia my whole life. Despite seeing Suffolk as a big lovely playground seemingly saturated with stories, mystery and the smell of roasted peanuts in my childhood, up until recently I’d been considering it to be just barely charming enough to not be considered awful and boring. It moves too slowly for me now, and as I prepare to move to New York for school in August the environment of my hometown does nothing for me except induce cravings of wanderlust and generally make me feel like a really big bird in a really small cage. Or, it did; until I got the assignment to do a photo essay on historic Suffolk - the district my 103-year-old house is located in. At some point between reading first-hand accounts of the Siege of Suffolk at the local library and heading everywhere from down the street to across the largest city in Virginia to snap photos, I discovered the awe I used to hold for my city when I was a child skinning my knees on Suffolk sidewalks.